Case Study: Trend Domain Development In A Day

As a Domain Investor there are many different ways to make money. I started-out completely focused on development and monetization, and have seen my business grown layering things like domain sales and consulting. On the development-side of the house my team focuses on building-out 3-5 sites/month, while managing our core brands that make up a majority of our monthly revenue.

While we typically stay-away from trend domains, sometimes we get lucky or find something that we think might be worth the investment. We learned a long time ago that while trends may peak and die out, they never go away completely. We have sites comfortably making $xxx/month on trends that went away more than four years ago! Still that being said we have also built-out plenty of trend domains that haven’t made a dime, but you don’t know if you don’t try. These are a gamble for us and represent less than 5% of the investments we make, but it’s a small investment and has been well worth it over the years.

Yesterday I found that the #1 trending topic related to Apple – Flashback Virus was available in .COM. This is the exact keyword phrase talked about on CNN, Fox News, The Huffington Post, and many many more. The trend domains we’ve done the best with in the past are those that exactly match the main trending term that is used in all the news headlines and on TV. Like I said, even when the trend goes away, we’ve had some great names continue to make money for years and years. Of course don’t expect all your trend domains to hit, and don’t build a business around trend domains, but building out a small percentage can be a great way to generate passive income.

Flashback Virus

You can see the site in the screenshot above and of course visit it by going to FlashbackVirus.com. I spent a total of $58 on the development of this site thanks to my awesome team and a very tight end-to-end process we’ve developed. The total amount of time I spent on this project was about five minutes when I actually bought the domain and sent my team leader the email. The team had this site up and running by the evening along with the corresponding Twitter account, Twitter.com/FlashbackVirus.

Will this site make a fortune? Maybe it will, if not, no big deal, it’s a total of $66 if you count the registration itself. Like I said, don’t make trend domains your main business, but it only takes $66 in revenue to make this baby profitable and from that point on it’s all profit. These aren’t nearly as fun as the larger brands that we build but it’s all part of building a diverse portfolio.

As always I’ll keep all of you updated as time goes. Feel free to ask any questions or share any comments you have. Comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton